When Karim Rowson was sent to the bench by Wadleigh coach Mike Crump, his first reaction was to lash out. His second was to prove Crump wrong.

Sunday afternoon, Thomas Jefferson paid for the senior’s demotion as a reserve.

Rowson, a 6-foot-5 forward, scored a team-high 22 points, leading the Tigers to a 62-58 upset of the Orange Wave at LIU in the PSAL Tip-Off Classic.

“I needed that to get back where I want to be,” Rowson said. “I wasn’t myself. It motivated me to get better.”

Boston University-bound guard Malik Thomas added 15 points, Trivante Bloodman had seven – all in the fourth quarter – and Basil Harley added six for Wadleigh, who has won two in a row after starting 1-3. Dave Coley led Jefferson with 24 points and Davontay Grace added 11.

The Tigers (3-3) began slow, trailing 20-10 after one quarter, but Rowson helped turned the tide. He had a pair of baskets in a 10-2 run to close the first half and scored eight points in the fourth quarter on a bevy of baby jump shots and layups around the basket.

“Karim is making a team commitment,” Crump said of Rowson, who started playing organized basketball just last year. “He was the difference.”

The argument can be made, however, that the difference wasn’t an individual, but a team-wide mindset. Instead of wilting after the shaky start, the Tigers grew tougher on the backboards and stingier on the defensive end.

They still missed plenty of layups and committed unnecessary turnovers – Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all – but played like the team Crump expected to see from Day 1.

“We had to redeem ourselves,” Rowson said.

There were many heroes, with him at the forefront. There was the tenacious defense and hustle of undersized forward Kasahn Townsend, Harley hitting a top-of-the-key 3-pointer to push a 3-point lead to six late in the fourth quarter, point guard David Burgos smoothly navigating the Jefferson press and Bloodman’s key fourth-quarter points.

The Orange Wave (5-1), meanwhile, lost for the first this year. Coach Lawrence Pollard blamed himself for scheduling five games in seven days. Yet, he also felt his team overlooked Wadleigh, and maybe needed a wakeup call with a showdown against Brooklyn AA rival Boys & Girls on Tuesday followed by next Sunday’s meeting with Catholic power Bishop Loughlin.

“It may help both of us,” Pollard said. “They need this win and we needed this loss.”

The win puts the losses to McKee/Staten Island Tech, West 50th Street Campus and Transit Tech in Wadleigh’s rear-view mirror for now. They did serve a positive, forcing Crump to make changes. He sent Rowson to the bench and stripped him and Thomas of their captaincy, elevating Rayvon Singleton, Wadleigh’s best defensive player, moves, Thomas said, that sent a necessary message.

“Nothing on this team,” he said, “is guaranteed.”

With wins over Eagle Academy and now Jefferson (5-1), a preseason city title contender, the Harlem school’s swagger is back. Crump wasn’t ready to make any declarations. He would like to see how his unpredictable team handles success first. Yet, the upset did make one thing clear.